Oh my. I don’t know if it’s that simple, whatever the intentions of individual European politicians. Of course, it was for each European state to decide its own method of ratification. And I would argue the vast majority of treaties should NOT be left to referenda anyway; a referendum can never really do justice to the innate complexity of any treaty.

‘That most people, but above all the English will treat it as a vote on national politics…’

As a young American living in London I’ve never quite understood British Euroscepticism. Or rather, I understand (if disagree with) their arguments against the EU, and have read plenty of theories advanced as to their origins, but am generally unimpressed with their counter-proposals. (Usually: withdraw from the EU, or at least ‘de-fang’ it/make it a trading bloc only. The latter is inconceivably daft, given opinions in other European capitals.)

But let’s be fair to Britons here…they’re neither the least interested in the elections—a full 6 other Eastern European states had lower turnouts, sometimes much lower—nor are they remotely alone in treating them as national elections. (Do you think the UMP won in France on the back of European issues? What about the CDU in Germany? Can’t the same thing be said for, well, pretty much every other country?)

As for the Presidency of the European Council: I agree that most of the touted candidates are very underwhelming, save for Mr. Blair—and he’s only an ‘interesting candidate’ precisely because his selection would cause a firestorm. At least it would make the whole affair devilishly entertaining.

However, there have been recent murmurs about Felipe González, the former (Socialist) Prime Minister of Spain, getting the job. I think he would be a fantastic choice (NB Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s said Mr. González was his favourite European politician.) Thing is, I don’t think any choice for president, save a British one, would really attract much attention from the British press.

Let’s be honest here, a huge problem with the EU in Britain—and increasingly elsewhere in Europe—is the sheer dearth of information made available, NOT so much by the Brussels Bubble crowd, but rather from the largely parochial media across the continent. Just look at the BBC here in Britain: on a slow news day—you know, when Iran isn’t imploding—‘foreign news’ usually means ‘American news’ (the BBC doesn’t even preface Barack Obama’s title in any way with his national origin—you guys think he’s your bloody president ;-P.) The rest of Europe is utterly ignored.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens with the current sclerosis. Europe’s been here before—for a decade after, roughly starting in the late 60s—so we shouldn’t lose all hope just yet. :)